Night Of Thunder Looks to Rebound at Ascot
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The sole sophomore classic winner on show at British Champions Day Oct. 18 at Ascot attempts to regain the winning thread for the first time since he won the Qipco Two Thousand Guineas (Eng-I) May 3.
Night Of Thunder has run three times since that Newmarket triumph, which he gained from Kingman and Australia. However, while the beaten colts have written headlines throughout the summer, Night Of Thunder has been unable to supplement those laurels ahead of the £1 million Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Sponsored by Qipco (Eng-I) over a eight furlongs.
Either side of two creditable runs over a mile, Saeed Manana's colt stepped up to 10 furlongs for the July 5 Coral-Eclipse Stakes (Eng-I), in which he finished a tame eighth of nine runners. Yet even a facile victory won't be sufficient for Night Of Thunder to usurp Kingman as Europe's champion miler.
That's because Kingman has since carried all before him, including a visually arresting defeat of Night Of Thunder in the St James' Palace Stakes (Eng-I) at Royal Ascot over a mile in June.
Indeed, Night Of Thunder's eclipse of Kingman and Australia at Newmarket remains impossible to reconcile with subsequent events. Kingman would have started at prohibitive odds had a throat infection not claimed him from the Ascot contest.
Other notable absentees include Olympic Glory, who was retired earlier this month, and Toronado, whose connections cited the prevailing testing ground.
Olympic Glory, Toronado, and Night Of Thunder all hail from the stable of Richard Hannon, who is virtually assured of the British trainers' title in his debut season after his father, also Richard, retired in December. Hannon is also represented by Toormore but last season's champion 2-year-old, without a win this term, appears out of his depth.
Night Of Thunder looked like a reviving talent on his most recent run when third, beaten a half a length, behind Charm Spirit in the one-mile Qatar Prix du Moulin de Longchamp (Fr-I) Sep. 14. But he had Charm Spirit, who re-opposes Saturday, back in fifth place when he won the Two Thousand Guineas.
Charm Spirit has gone from strength to strength since then. Sheikh Abdulla bin Khalifa At Thani's 3-year-old son of Kingman's sire, Invincible Spirit, annexed the Prix Jean Prat (Fr-I) on very soft ground at Chantilly in July. His trainer, Freddy Head, is confident his horse will cope with conditions underfoot.
Top Notch Tonto, trained in the north of England by Brian Ellison, excelled himself when chasing home Olympic Glory in this race last year. However, Keith Brown's gelded 4-year-old has not run close to that level since.
Integral is in better heart, as evidenced by the 4-year-old's front-running defeat of the One Thousand Guineas (Eng-I) heroine Miss France in the Kingdom Of Bahrain Sun Chariot Stakes (Eng-I) Oct. 4. Cheveley Park Stud's homebred daughter of Dalakhani also has winning form on soft ground via her triumph in the Qipco Falmouth Stakes (Eng-I) in July.
Also in contention is Custom Cut, who out-galloped another supplemented runner, Captain Cat, when the pair clashed in the Shadwell Joel Stakes (Eng-II) over this trip at Newmarket Sep. 26. A progressive 5-year-old, Custom Cut hails from the stable of David O'Meara, the former jumps jockey who has made a big impact on the flat this year.